agreement on the fiscal cliff. there are only 28 days left. good morning, everyone, i'm brian shactman, and this is "way too early," the show where you actually never know who you'll be talking to when you wake up. hopeful hopefully mika has some well needed rest and slow probably sill resting from that alabama game which was incredible. a lot to talk about this morning on the news side on monday, december 3rd, including a new initiative by schools that could have a huge impact on the amount of time your kid spends in the classroom. it may be good for parents. i don't know about the kids, though. details surrounding the tragic death of the kansas city chiefs' linebacker and his girlfriend as the chiefs play an emotional game yesterday at arrowhead stadium. first let's get to our top story at 5:30 a.m. on the east coast at 30 rock in new york city. lawmakers now have less than a month to compromise and avoid a year-end deadline that would trigger massive spending cuts and tax hikes at the same time for everybody.

behind the scenes negotiations, absolutely at a stalemate. so both sides, what do they do? they go public on the sunday morning talk shows to state their cases. treasury secretary tim geithner on your left predicting republicans would eventually come around to accept a tax increase on the highest earners. >> you think we'll get a deal by the end of the year? >> i do. i do. the only thing standing in the way of that would be a refusal by republicans to accept that rates are going to have to go up on the wealthiest americans. and i don't really see them doing that. >> if the republicans say sorry, no way, are we going to raise rates on the wealthy, you guys are willing to go off the fiscal cliff? >> if republicans are not willing to let rates go back up, and we think they should go back to the clinton levels, a time when the economy was doing exceptionally well, then there will not be an agreement. >> let's go to the other side. republican house speaker john boehner also digging in, admitting that talks are going nowhere. speaker boehner also describing the moment when geithner first

showed him the president's opening offer. >> i was flabbergasted. i looked at him, i said, "you can't be serious." i've just never seen anything like it. you know, we've got seven weeks between election day and the end of the year. and three of those weeks have been wasted with this nonsense. right now i would say we're nowhere, period. we're nowhere. we've put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there to try to get this question resolved. but the white house has responded with virtually nothing. they've actually asked for more revenue than they've been asking for the whole entire time. >> what are the chances we're going to go over the cliff? >> there's clearly a chance. meanwhile, grover norquist making a new prediction should lawmakers fail to reach a deal. >> understand how ugly the next four years are going to get. everything in obamacare that obama didn't want you to focus on or think about, the 90% of

his trillion-dollar tax increase was pushed over till after he got himself safely re-elected. all those regulations you're now hearing about, okay, those all hit after the election. we've got four years of regulation taxes. he wants to add higher taxes to that. tea party, too, is going to dwarf tea party one if obama pushes us off the cliff. another major story from the weekend, it was an emotional weekend in the nfl and in kansas city as the chiefs took the field on sunday just 24 hours after a tragedy involving a key member of their team. police say linebacker jovan belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, the mother of his infant daughter. minutes later he took his own life in the parking lot of arrowhead stadium where the chiefs play right in front of his coaches. nbc's tan trareporter. >> reporter: kansas city head coach romeo crennel wiped away

tears on the sideline one day after witnessing linebacker jovan belcher taking his own life. >> i'm choosing not to answer any questions about what i saw yesterday. and i think that you will understand that, and hopefully you will respect my wishes on that because it wasn't a pretty sight. >> reporter: belcher shot himself here at this practice facility at famed arrowhead stadium. crennel told police the 25-year-old belcher thanked him and general manager scott pioli for all they did for him. and then fired the fatal shots. >> our prayers go out to the family of kasandra perkins. they are grieving, and we send our condolences to that family. our prayers and condolences go out to the family of jovan belcher. they are also grieving. >> reporter: earlier that morning belcher shot and killed his girlfriend, kasandra perkins. the couple leaves behind a 3-month-old baby. >> i know that she really was excited and loved that baby.

and she's just a beautiful person inside and out. >> reporter: fans tailgated, but the shootings hung heavily over the stadium. >> it's not the celebratory atmosphere that it usually is. >> first instincts i had was what are they going to do? are they going to play the game or postpone it? >> reporter: before kickoff, a moment of silence for victims of domestic violence and their families. belcher's name was not mentioned, but it didn't have to be. >> obviously, there was some deeper issues that none of us knew about, and it's just sad that it had to happen the way he did and he couldn't get help. >> reporter: in belcher's hometown of west babylon, new york, a vigil for the former high school star whose life and another were cut short by his own hands. >> our prayers and hopes go out to 3-month-old zoe, little girl who will never get to know her mother and father. >> at first it didn't seem appropriate to have the game at all, but it seemed to work out the right way. that was nbc's tran trang.

overseas, afghan military forces are being credited for stopping a bold and coordinated attack by insurgents who were attempting to breach the walls of a coalition air base. it happened in the eastern city of jalalabad. taliban insurgents dressed in military uniforms and detonated three car bombs near the entrance of the base. afghan forces responded on the ground with nato helicopters providing backup. all nine taliban fighters were killed along with at least five afghan guards. no u.s. forces were hurt in the two-hour firefight. nato officials confirm that none of the insurgents was able to breach the perimeter of the base. the united nations is condemning israel's plan to expand new settlements in the west bank and in eastern jerusalem, land that israel seized during the 1967 middle east war. israel announced the plan in retaliation to thursday's u.n. resolution vote to upgrade

palestine's status as a nonmember observer state. u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon says the move to expand settlements would almost certainly be a, quote, fatal blow, end quote, to any chance of achieving peace with the palestinians. israel also says it's withholding more than $100 million in tax revenue from the financially troubled palestinian authority. instead using the money to repay a debt owed to israel's electric company for supplying power to parts of the west bank. turning to education and some news that could soon have a major impact on your kid's school day. starting next fall, districts will expand the school day, adding as much as 300 hours to the calendar. it's all part of a theree-year plan aimed at boosting achievement and making the u.s. more competitive. schools will be part of the pilot program, but educators hope to add additional communities. education secretary arne duncan has been pushing for more time

in the classroom for the last several years. additional costs will come from a combination of local funds and shifting existing federal programs. with the u.s. poised to dominate global petroleum production for the next decade in large part because of natural gas and fracking, other countries may be at least a decade behind in gdeveloping their own supplies. my krchlcnbc colleague jeff cutmore live overseas. this is good news at least in the short term, right? >> absolutely, brian. and a very good morning to you. good to see you anchoring the program this morning. the u.s. has such a strong lead in this area. it's hard to see how companies trying to find this shale gas elsewhere around the world are going to have the same kind of success. we've seen millions of wells drilled in the united states. we're just seeing in countries like poland pioneering one or two initial wells being drilled by companies like chevron.

so the potential is out there. it's just going to take a whole lot longer to get it out of the ground and to the consumer. and a couple of real issues here. one is yes, we're way behind in terms of the program. i mean, countries like china may have the same reserves of gas as the u.s. has. but it's just going to take a whole lot longer getting to them. and the second one is a lot of these countries don't have the same distribution infrastructure in place unlike the united states. so even if they get the wells there, they get the gas out, it's just harder getting it to the ultimate consumer. be that industrial or consumer. so a good, positive, solid story for the u.s. on shale gas. >> talking about the u.s. and the uk, one of the world's largest airlines trying to get a footprint over there. i don't know, our airlines aren't quite as good as the ones overseas. what's going on with virgin airways? >> it's a fascinating story, this. i mean, delta seems like they've played a trump card here. we'll just have to see whether this deal goes all the way.

back in 2000, we saw richard branson -- sir richard branson -- selling 49% of his virgin airline group to singapore airlines. singapore now trying to sell that. they paid nearly $1 billion for it in 2000. we don't have a price yet. a lot of talk about delta might be interested. part of the reason that gives them -- some of their 304 takeoff and landing slots that virgin has into london's heathrow airport. the busiest hub in the world, i think. back to you. >> well, if they get it, i hope they don't affect virgin because it's the best way to get to london. geoff cutmore live from london, we appreciate that. as always, shoot us an e-mail, waytooearly@msnbc.com and let us know why you are up right now. or text "awake" followed by your response to 622639. we'll read the best responses. we've got to wake you up in the

studio, too. meanwhile, still ahead on "way too early" -- >> play fake and now sanchez fires, and it's intercepted again. >> mark sanchez getting benched after throwing three first-half interceptions. and ironically, tim tebow did not come in to save the day. who did? we'll show you who rex ryan called in to qb. plus, president obama handing out the kennedy center honor as wards to this year's crop of entertainment icons including david letterman, dustin hoffman. we'll have that story and a check on weather when "way too early" comes right back. today in cincinnati, stunned city officials are trying to learn what went wrong last night outside a rock concert by a

british group called the who. a huge crowd waiting for general admission seats suddenly surged toward entrance doors. the people elbowing and kicking each other. many were pushed under, and the crowd stampeded over them. 11 died. restore revive rejuvenate rebuild rebuild rebuild try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable,

plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase.

and with my bankamericard cash rewards credit card, i love 'em even more. i earn 1% cash back everywhere, every time. 2% on groceries. 3% on gas. automatically. no hoops to jump through. that's 1% back on... [ toy robot sounds ] 2% on pumpkin pie. and apple. 3% back on 4 trips to the airport. it's as easy as... -[ man ] 1... -[ woman ] 2... [ woman ] 3. [ male announcer ] the bankamericard cash rewards card. apply online or at a bank of america near you.

i just finished a bowl of your new light chicken pot pie soup and it's so rich and creamy... is it really 100 calories? let me put you on webcan... ...lean roasted chicken... and a creamy broth mmm i can still see you. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. right out the back of 30 rock, the beautiful tree sucking up america's electricity, but looking gorgeous at the same time here at 5:45 a.m. on the east coast. let's get a check on your weather now from nbc meteorologist bill karins. bill, am i doing okay? >> fantastic. >> because if there's any constructive criticism you want to give me, let me know. >> barnicle set the bar so low that you really can't fail doing this show. >> you're all set. >> it's easy. >> barnicle, you know, he just talks. >> yeah, once you wear jean shorts and host the show, then it's all downhill, right, mikey?

>> absolutely. >> good morning, everyone. a huge storm that came into the west coast over the weekend is now gone. getting a break. the river levels will start to come down. it was a nasty three or four days out there. but now the worst is over with. i think at one point the winds gusted to 150 miles per hour. some of the highest peaks there of california in the sierras. the rest of the country, speaking of jean shorts, you can get away with shorts in many areas of the country today. it's ridiculously warm. 64 degrees to start your morning in kansas city in december. that's what it's typically like in july at this time of the morning. i mean, this is just an indication of we're going to have numerous record highs. it's so warm. there's a lot of fog out there. give yourself extra time along i-95 all the way from north florida into north carolina and also anywhere near the great lakes. airport delays will be a problem around chicago and also near possibly in cleveland. except for that, it's just a nice warm mild morning, brian. >> should probably be a constitutional amendment banning the jean shorts. also with white socks with shoes. >> if you've got legs like barnicle.

>> it works well. are you kidding me? >> you wear them with your flip-flops, too? >> yeah. time for sports now. the eagles trying to avoid losing their eighth straight game last night against the cowboys. let's pick it up with four minutes left in the game. cowboys up by four. bryce brown loses the ball. and morris claiborne scoops it up, and he's off to the proverbial races. 50 yards the other way for the touchdown. that would appear to seal the deal for the cowboys, but the eagles not done. check this out. i love these. less than a minute remaining. cowboys punting to johnson. fields the punt. yep, he's coming all the way back from the 2 yard line. a little weave, duck and move and he is gone as well. all the way down the sideline. outrunning everybody including the popcorn guy. untouched for 98-yard touchdown. gives the eagles a chance with 31 seconds left after missing the two-point conversion, down five. but they do not get the on-side kick, and the cowboys hang on to win, 38-33. they are still alive in the playoff hunt at 6-6.

the eagles, well, they haven't won since september the 30th. a couple number one picks squaring off, andrew luck led his colts into detroit to face matt stafford's lions. less than three minutes left in the game. luck buys a little time. this guy is legit, folks. finds brazil for the score. colts cut the deficit to five. four seconds left. colts still down five. fourth and ten from the 14 yard line. this is the last play of the game. here's iron eagle with the call. >> here we go. final seconds. luck steps, luck, a little flick, donnie avery, he's in! touchdown! indianapolis has done it! >> peyton who? the lions in absolute shock on the sidelines as time expires. luck throws two touchdowns in the final 2 1/2 minutes to get his team the 35-33 win. colt s improve to 8-4. nobody thought that would

happen. just the latest letdown for the lions who lose their third straight. they had the lead in all of those games. the jets hosting the cardinals, what a matchup. mark sanchez desperate for a decent performance. first offensive play of the game. sanchez, off the play fake. i think 101, barnicle, is that when you're in trouble, don't throw a high ball over the middle. kerry rhodes coming down with the easy interception. would only get worse for sanchez. he'd throw two more picks before halftime. in the third quarter, rex ryan had finally seen enough. tim tebow not playing, cracked ribs. turned to greg mcelroy. the alabama product comes through, rolls out, just tosses it right to jeff cumberland. and they win a barnburner. 7-6. after the game, rex ryan spoke about his quarterback situation. >> i'll always do what i think's in the best interests of our team in trying to find ways to win.

at that time i thought it was time to make a change. i'll let you guys know who's going to be the quarterback when i'm ready to because right now, you know, again, we'll look at our situation and evaluate it as the week goes on. >> the 5-7 jets face the 2-10 jaguars this sunday. ben roethlisberger still out for the steelers. so third stringer charlie batch gets the start against the ravens. pick it up in the fourth quarter. steelers facing fourth and five from the 7. batch rolls out and finds heath miller. just makes it into the end zone for the touchdown. tying the game at 20-20 after the extra point. three seconds left. shaun suisham swish right down the middle from 42 yards to win it. pretty good, batch, looks like the man hug with meatloaf in "fight club." pretty emotional at the end of this one. victory over their division rivals. they move to 7-5 on the season. on a more somber note, an emotional day for the chiefs in kansas city, played the panthers

just a day after linebacker jovan belcher killed his girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself. they played one of their best of the season in the wake of this tragedy. chiefs up three, brady quinn finds jonathan baldwin on the slant for the touchdown. chiefs go up by two scores. they would never give that lead back. they go on to win 27-21. and that is their first victory since september the 23rd. coming up at the top of the hour on "morning joe," the top republican in the fiscal cliff negotiations says both sides are, quote, nowhere heading into the final month. is there enough time left on the clock to find some common ground? we'll constitutes with our "morning joe" crew. when we come back here, we'll huddle around the water cooler. where you think your commute was bad, well, it's nothing like this traffic jam that lasted two days. that story and a recap of last night's kennedy center honor awards when "way too early" comes right back. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right,

whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios tend to weigh less than those who don't. i have obligations. cute tobligations, but obligations.g. i need to rethink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal.

let's take a break from the real news for a skpekd gather around the water cooler to watch the president and first lady pay tribute to the recipients of this year's kennedy center honors awards. actor dustin hoffman, david letterman and the remaining british rockers led zeppelin honored along with a few others. during the ceremony, the president noted the odd combo of artists, even cracked a few

jokes. >> tonight we continue a tradition here at the white house by honoring some extraordinary people who no business being on the same stage together. we've got buddy guy sitting next to dustin hoffman. we've got dave letterman alongside one of the grittest ballerinas of all time. i don't think dave dances. we'll never forget buddy playing "sweet home chicago" in this very room back in february and him and a few others forcing me to sing along, which was just okay. i worked with the speechwriters. there's no smooth transition from ballet to led zeppelin. we're trying to work the "stairway to heaven" metaphor, and it didn't work. of course, these guys also redefined the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. we do not have video of this.

but there was some hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around. so it's fitting that we're doing this in a room with windows that are about three inches thick. and secret service all around. so guys, let's just settle down. these paintings are valuable. >> good job by president obama or his speechwriters. now, before the ceremony, former kennedy center honoree actress meryl streep and secretary of state hillary clinton met up at the artists dinner. well, they caught themselves taking their own picture. by the way, i can see meryl playing hillary in a movie coming up. she can morph into julia child and margaret thatcher. if you think your rush hour is bad, check this out. moving less than a mile in 24 hours. that's how it was going for driver as long a major highway in russia. a heavy snowstorm has kept thousands of cars and trucks

stuck for more than two days on the main highway between moscow and st. petersburg. some say the backup stretches 120 miles. temperatures are pretty much below zero. kitchens have been set up on the side of the road. drivers running low on fuel are using to heat their vehicles. this looks like a bar right there. still ahead on "with a too early," why are you awake? your tweets, texts and e-mails are next and "morning joe" just moments away. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ]

[ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it... in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. great taste. mmm... [ male announcer ] sounds good. it's amazing what soup can do. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪ and the next great idea could be yours. music is a universal language. but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. information on my phone.

connection to doctors who get where i'm from. and tools to estimate what my care may cost. so i never missed a beat. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. it's healthier, and the only one clinically proven. with aloe, vitamins, and no ammonia. my hair looks healthier than before i colored. i switched. you can too, to natural instincts. ♪